Opinion
Column

Crime is up, and so is our level of suspicion

It was a summer night in 2007. My car had broken down on a country road as I was heading home from work just after midnight. It was a time before I finally felt the need to get a cell phone, but I was really wishing I had one at that moment.

I had no choice but to walk up a stranger’s driveway, knock on their door, apologize profusely and ask if I could use their phone to call for help.

It was a helpless and scary moment for me knowing I had to wake someone from a deep sleep. (Thankfully, it was a kind woman who even offered to drive me home, saying she’d hope someone would do the same for her daughter).

But now, a decade later, if the same predicament occurred, I would be less worried about simply waking someone up and more worried about the homeowner calling the cops the minute they saw a strange figure in their yard — or assuming the worst of my intentions and taking matters into their own hands.

And I can’t blame them. I’d be scared, too.

Last month, the Alberta Provincial Rural Crime Watch Association stated break-ins, theft and mischief on farms and acreages are still rampant in the province.

Rural crime rates are through the roof in Alberta — up more than 250 per cent since 2011.

Everyone is suspicious of any activity around their property or neighbourhood, and they have a right to be. It’s no one’s fault but the lowlife criminals skulking around rural communities.

Just last week, RCMP in Evansburg arrested a man and woman in a stolen truck. They were then slapped with additional charges after a dashboard camera caught them in other criminal acts in several communities.

The duo now face a total of 60 criminal code charges, including possession of property obtained by crime over $5,000. The man will be in Mayerthorpe Provincial Court on Feb. 12.

Crime typically drops in the winter, when even thieves don’t want to be out in the cold. But tougher times mean they’re getting more desperate and bold.

But there are also a lot of simple precautions we can take to make it less easy for criminals.

Lock your vehicle doors — even if you’re only leaving the vehicle for a minute. If you don’t have remote start and need to warm it up, have a spare set of keys with you to lock and unlock it.

Invest in a locking gas cap.

Always double check that you’ve closed your garage door and locked all others. And if you see a neighbour has left their garage door open at night, call them up. They’ll likely thank you for it.

Let’s look out for each other. Don’t take it as your neighbour being nosy if they’re watching to see who’s coming and going from your place. (But if you’re the kind of neighbour who does this because you’re bored and feel the need to formulate gossip, stop it. You’re not helping).

It’s sad that it’s come to this; that we now have to assume the worst in people.

Just before Christmas, a man approached me while I was loading up my vehicle in the grocery store parking lot, and it put me on edge. Was he distracting me while someone else reached into my vehicle to snatch my purse? Or hop in my vehicle and hope I had the keys inside? It turned out all he wanted was to return my cart to retrieve the dollar from it, and was also just craving a bit of small talk with someone. I hesitantly gave him both before heading on my way.

The encounter stuck with me though, because things like this don’t normally shake me. I used to assume the best in people — almost to a fault.